Hey, Sugar! Bring it on!

Looking for candy cake craziness? You have found the right post! Today I am going to make up for the unnerving healthy vegetarian diet posts. This is all about cream, chocolate, sugar and fabulous sweet confections to make you happy. Three must-visit cake stores in Budapest. The best comes first:

Sugar! is Budapest’s answer to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, set in a 50s soda shop setting, inspired by Japanese kitsch.

Location: Paulay Ede St 48, 1061 Budapest

It is the place to dive into a world of sweets and relive your childhood. Sugar! is the most colourful and exciting pastry shop in town, which we visited a few weeks ago and then kept coming back to find out, if snozzberries really taste like snozzberries.

Impressive selection of Jelly Belly and M&M’s.

Be a Sugar! superhero and see, if you can manage to decide on your treat in less than 20 minutes.

When it comes to cake and lollipops, size matters. When it comes to rice pudding variety matters. There are six different types of rice pudding and eight types of sauces and toppings.

For a while, I was tempted by banana chocolate pie.

For the first time, I was truly fascinated by CocaCola, coffee and popcorn.

I gave the American Dream a thought, but in the end it remained a dream.

How about accessories-cake? Silver-pink high heel sandal would have been my choice.

Or a muffin? You got to bring some time to Sugar! for sure. And don’t be such a sad-face, if white Magnum cake is sold out (again). There are plenty of sweet options – Sugar! is also selling real ice-cream, of course.

And finally, our pick: Light chocolate sponge cheesecake filled with a layer of peanut cream and caramel praline cake for Tomek. Lime yoghurt cream layered with home made lemon marshmallow raspberry sauce and almond biscuits pour moi. How does that sound?

Not only the cakes have fabulous design.

Cake is just half the fun. Try their smoothies.

It’s just all Wonka wonderful and I am such a star.

Truth or dare? Truth? Okay. I have had that cake three times this week.

Dare? Okay! At Sugar! you can find out what snozzberry flavour tastes like, at the bathrooms, licking the candy, embedded in their wash basins. Good lick! (No picture – find out for yourself!)

In the end, we left happy and round sound.

I will be back for blue bubblegum ice-cream and for that remote control. Did I say? They also sell fun merchandise and gifts.

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Just so you know, how unique of a place Sugar! is, here are a few glimpses of a very different but ‘common’ pastry shop in Budapest: Jégbüfé (which means ice café). Opened in the best-of-communist era manner, in 1952.

Location: Ferenciek tere 10, 1053 Budapest, next to the bus station

First, you walk up to the counter to choose your cake, then you walk to the other side, to pay at the cashier. With the receipt in your hand, you walk up to the cake counter again to get your cake, which you then carry to a counter by the window, where you can stand, eat and watch people waiting for the bus watching you.

The cakes must be so good, the display is of secondary issue.

You can see portraits of the pastry-shop-staff presented in graduation-picture-style.

“Hey Sugar, let me take you out to Budapest’s finest Café…”

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After the visit to the elegant and sophisticated CaféGerbeaud, I appreciated sugar, as in Sugar!, some more.

Location: Vörösmarty tér 7-8, 1051 Budapest

This was once Europe’s finest coffee house. Gerbeaud was the leading icon in the sweets business in the 19th century, selling ice cream and cake, until socialism decided that people do not need sophisticated places. So in 1945 the state took over ownership of the Café and renamed it Vörösmarty after the square, where it stands.

The interiors boast rococo and French secessionist tables from the Paris World fair in 1900. It was totally empty on Friday night.

It’s very theatrical and a bit on the stiff side. I sort of felt the struggle of transition, from behind-the-counter communism to need-to-compete capitalism.

We tried Baileys cake and had popular Hungarian lemonade. And a good shot of Polish vodka. That’s not true. They were only serving water for free.

I choked on the bill. And on the rock hard peanuts. Add the 15% service charge and there is no reason to come back. That’s 4500 Ft for cake and lemonade. Okay, and a beer.

“Taste as many cakes, pastries and confections as you CAN to get a feel for the flavours of Gerbeaud.” Screw sophisticated itsy-bitsy dining – eat as much as you CAN! Yeah! The Café introduces a funny competitive element to the consumption of cake.

The cake was unquestionably good, the history of Gerbeaud interesting but the fun factor of the place is about zero. The clientèle is mainly bold, grey and retired. Yes, I am going to write a very different review in 2046. Stay tuned.